


silence is my favorite sound

by reystars



Category: Ready or Not (2019)
Genre: Alex is still a shithead though, Alternate Ending, Daniel survives, F/M, Grace doesn't kill Becky, What if the curse wasn't real?, lots of 'fucks', rated M for possible later sexytimes. who knows.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-04
Updated: 2020-04-21
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:40:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21666820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reystars/pseuds/reystars
Summary: watch me make 'em bow / one by one by, one / one by one by (one)“What options?” Becky asks, stepping forward. Grace wants to admire her, in a way, the lengths she’s willing to go to protect her family. Even now, with no immediate threat, she has the same sense of urgency. The same desperation. “We need to get rid of her. If this secret gets out we are ruined.”“Bribery?” Daniel suggests, and Grace looks over his shoulder at Alex, who is silent. He looks like a chastised child, embarrassed and foolish. He won’t even speak up for her now, after everything?Fuck this fucking family.
Relationships: Daniel Le Domas/Grace Le Domas
Comments: 106
Kudos: 626





	1. tear me to pieces, skin and bone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _but I know someday I’ll make it out of here / even if it takes all night or a hundred years_

“HAIL SATAN!”

Helene’s raspy voice rises above the chanting of the Le Domas family as Grace struggles against their iron tight grips pinning her to the table. Her voice is raw from screaming, Tony’s bloody hands covering her mouth as she stares up at Alex. Now that she sees him like this, a craze in his eyes, she knows that he and Daniel are absolutely nothing alike. Nothing at all.

“Hail Satan,” Alex says quietly. No remorse. No sadness. Just resignation.

 _Fuck no._ Not after everything she’s been through tonight. Not after the nail through the hand, the garden gate slicing open the skin on her back, the car wreck, after getting fucking _shot_. Her nails dig into Tony’s hand and he instinctively yelps, losing his grip on Grace’s face just long enough for her to turn.

Alex’s knife plunges into her arm. At this point she’s screaming as often as she’s breathing, the sound coming out like a battle cry.

She takes advantage of the surprise, though, stumbling off the table. She pulls the knife out of her arm, holding it out in front of her, waving it around. Screaming, still. She wonders if she’ll ever stop. Stumbling back, Grace’s foot catches on something, pulling it down. It’s the blackout curtains blocking the windows and as the thick, red fabric rips, daylight bursts into the room.

Everyone freezes.

“It is lost,” Helene moans in despair, whirling to face the empty chair at the head of the table. “Forgive us!”

Emilie is covering the eyes of her sons, her face scrunched in anticipation. Tony has ducked behind the table. Alex is simply staring at her. She refuses to look back at him, still wielding the knife. Finally, Fitch speaks.

“Um. Nothing’s happening.”

Fitch turns to Tony. “I knew it. I fuckin’ knew it.”

Tony’s mouth opens, then shuts, then opens again, unable to find words. He looks at Becky, who is staring at the ground, the puzzle box in her hand.

“Grace…” Alex murmurs, and Grace growls at him in warning, the waving knife in her hand enough to make him take a step back.

“So. What should we do about her?” Fitch asks with a clinical nod of his head in Grace’s direction. As if she’s not there. As if they hadn’t just spent an entire night hunting her down.

Helene’s hands are trembling. “I know it is too late.”

She’s still speaking to the fucking _chair_.

“But I will not fail you again.”

And then Helene is jumping, reaching for the giant axe leaning against the table, hollering.

“The girl still dies!”

The door to the parlor smashes open, the distraction throwing off the frail woman, the axe embedding itself into the wooden floor with a crunch and splinters. Daniel is leaning against the doorframe, out of breath, dried blood on his neck.

“So it was all bullshit, huh?”

Grace looks over at Charity and can see her hands are trembling.

Still holding up the knife, Grace can feel the blood flowing from the gaping wound in her arm. How much blood has she lost today? Definitely not a healthy amount. She’s beginning to feel lightheaded, or maybe she was already feeling lightheaded, she was just too pissed to realize it.

Daniel is making his way past Charity, around the table, toward Grace. Helene has dropped to her knees in frustration, trying to pull the axe out of the ground with no luck.

“Daniel,” Becky says, holding up a hand. “Let’s think about this for a minute.”

“Think about what, mom?” he asks, gently taking Grace’s arm. When she flinches he lets go immediately, glancing down, taking in her fresh stab wound. “I’m taking Grace to the hospital.”

“Oh no you’re not,” Charity seethes. “So we can all go to jail? Yourself included?”

“Maybe we deserve to go to jail.”

Can’t argue with that one.

“Hold on,” Alex finally says, stepping forward. “That’s my _wife_. I can—"

Grace’s laugh cuts him off, a harsh, hoarse sound. She finally lets the knife drop, slipping her wedding ring off of her finger. She throws it at him and it hits his lapel, clinking to the floor, rolling under the table.

“Like hell I am,” she says. And in case that isn’t clear enough, she adds, “I want a divorce.”

“She knows too much,” Becky says, glancing at her husband. “She saw the pig pen.”

Tony still seems in shock, but he pulls himself together.

“You’re right,” he says, glancing over at Emilie and Fitch. “Take the boys out for a minute. We’re going to have to finish this ritual and it may get a little messy.”

Grace’s body seizes up and she backs up further as Daniel holds his arms out.

“Hold on,” he says, and although his voice is calm, she can see the tension in his back. “Hold on. Let’s think about our options here.”

“What options?” Becky asks, stepping forward. Grace wants to admire her, in a way, the lengths she’s willing to go to protect her family. Even now, with no immediate threat, she has the same sense of urgency. The same desperation. “We need to get rid of her. If this secret gets out we are ruined.”

“Bribery?” Daniel suggests, and Grace looks over his shoulder at Alex, who is silent. He looks like a chastised child, embarrassed and foolish. He won’t even speak up for her now, after everything? _Fuck this fucking family_.

Before the pitiful negotiations for Grace’s life can continue, they are interrupted by a crash. Grace remembers all too suddenly the lamp she had thrown at Tony’s head. Smoke has begun to fill the room and they all seem to realize it at once.

All hell breaks loose. Emilie is screaming, grabbing her boys, running toward the door. Aunt Helene is still trying to dislodge the axe from the ground, and Alex is still staring, dumbfounded. Daniel’s hand pulls Grace by her waist—the only place left on her that’s not bleeding, apparently—toward what looks like a wall but must be another servant’s door. Alex follows them through as they run down the servant’s hall, the sound of the crumbling house above them and the smell of smoke making Grace feel as if she’ll heave at any moment.

They finally break through near the garage where six Mercedes-Benz and Porsches and other cars with ridiculously spelled names are lying in wait, keys left in the ignition with all the comfort and relaxation of being really disgustingly rich.

Daniel bolts for the nearest one, an unsubtle color of bright red.

“Wait, let me take you,” Alex says, and Grace whirls on him, shoving him back. He stumbles.

“No,” says Grace. “I’m not going _anywhere_ with you.”

Daniel is frozen with the driver’s seat door open.

“Grace, c’mon,” he says. “We can work through this.”

And then Helene bursts through the servant’s door, axe in the air, hollering. Alex jumps out of her way and she barely misses Grace with another miscalculated swing that takes off the driver’s side mirror of a silver Tesla.

“Come on!” Daniel shouts. Grace pulls open the door and dives into the back seat. Helene is able to shatter the window as Daniel throws the car in reverse, backing directly through the garage door. As the metal of the garage door collapses in on itself like a folding menu, Grace watches as Aunt Helene’s head is smashed in the chaos.

There’s a loud screeching noise as the car drags the pieces of the garage across the cement driveway, sparks flying. Grace hauls herself up in the backseat, she can see the rest of the family running out, shouting, waving their hands, the mansion in flames behind them. Daniel throws the car into drive and turns with screeching wheels, taking off down the driveway with such expertise that she wonders how many times he’d made a quick getaway like this before.

With a thump the last pieces of the garage are dislodged from the car and Grace glances out the back window. Alex’s figure is getting smaller and smaller as they drive away, through the open fence, down the paved road. Grace fully lays down across the two seats in the back, feeling safe for the first time in hours.

“Hey Daniel,” she says. “I think I’m going to—”

With the adrenaline gone, black swarms her vision and she passes out.


	2. it could have been a nightmare

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _but it felt like they were right there / and it feels like yesterday was a year ago_

“Hey, wake up.”

Grace comes to. She’s still in the back of car—now having bled all over most of it—and Daniel has the door open, glancing down at her uncomfortably. His hands are hovering, as if he wants to help her but he’s not quite sure how.

The lights hurt her head. Actually, everything hurts. Things are hurting that she had no idea could hurt.

Wrinkling his nose, Daniel helps Grace sit up.

“You smell like shit,” he says, not quite looking at her. Her once white wedding dress is now brown. She’s about to snap back at him as she steps out of the car but the ground shifts below her and she nearly falls over.

“Hold on,” Grace says, leaning on him. “There’s going to be questions.”

As she grapples for him, her hand finds the lapels of his suit jacket. She realizes he’s been wearing the same thing all night too.

“Tell them you got in a car wreck,” Daniel says with a shrug, slipping his arm around her waist to better support her.

“Oh, you think that’s better than a bunch of rich assholes decided to play the world’s most fucked up game of Hide and Go Seek?”

Daniel doesn’t say anything, just makes another face at Grace’s smell as he helps her limp toward the door.

Once the automatic door opens, everything becomes a blur. There’s concerned nurses—highly alarmed, concerned nurses—and a hastily patched together explanation of Grace’s car being crashed into a ravine and getting turned around from the highway and having to survive in the wilderness overnight.

It's not _too_ far off from the truth.

Grace knows she must be in bad condition because she’s suddenly on a gurney and her dress is literally being cut off of her. Daniel disappears, somewhere, at some point, but they finally pump her so full of morphine that she doesn’t care. In her haze she hears the doctors refer to Daniel as her husband, which is strange. Then she remembers his suit, bowtie untied, draped over his shoulders. She wonders why he didn’t contradict them.

In the stream of flashing lights and faces above hers, Grace closes her eyes. Darkness washes over her.

\---

Grace wakes in a bed, in a dark room, a monitor beeping softly next to her. The lights are dimmed, and the room is cast in a hazy green glow. An analog clock sitting next to her on the table has hands too thin to quite tell, but it looks like it’s after 10. PM, she guesses, since there’s no sunlight showing through the white curtains at the window.

Checking in with her body seems like a bad idea right now. Everything just hurts. At least, she notices, she still has her left hand. It’s wrapped in layers of gauze and hurting like mad, but still apparently in one piece. Glancing down at the IV connected to her exposed hand, she follows the tubes until she spots a button. She presses it, and the relief is almost instantaneous.

Ah, morphine.

It’s a nicer hospital than she’d ever be able to afford in her life. Just as she notices the leather jacket strewn across the empty chair next to her bed, the door cracks open. It’s Daniel holding a cup of coffee. Realizing she’s awake and looking at him, he nearly spills on himself, catching it at the last minute.

“Jesus—” he says.

“Grace, actually,” she reminds him.

“How are you… how are you feeling?” he asks awkwardly, settling into the chair next to the bed as if it’s made of wasps he doesn’t want to risk disturbing.

“What the hell kind of question is that?” Grace asks.

She can see his phone light up, sticking out of the pocket of his jacket, draped over the chair. He sets his coffee down and picks it up, giving it a cursory glance before silencing it.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” Grace says. “I know they’re looking for you. Both of us.”

Daniel shrugs, not looking at her.

“Figured you wouldn’t want to wake up alone.”

She doesn’t know how to respond to that. Daniel’s phone buzzes again, lighting up. She watches him hit the button on the side to silence it without even looking at it this time.

“Who is it?” Grace asks. “Alex? Your wife?”

“I went back to the house,” Daniel says. “They managed to contain the fire, but everyone’s been shitting themselves—literally—because of what I gave them at the ceremony. They’re all pretty pissed. Dad’s upset about Aunt Helene.”

“Fuck,” Grace whispers, remembering watching her head completely smashed by the garage. She sets her eyes on Daniel.

“Do they still want to kill me?” she asks.

“About as much as they want to kill me, yeah.”

He settles back in the chair, staring past Grace at the window.

“Did Charity know?” Grace finally asks.

It takes him a moment to respond. “About the game?”

“Yeah. About what she was risking, marrying you.”

A beat passes before he finally answers.

“Yes.”

He’s quiet for so long she thinks he won’t continue, but to her surprise, he does.

“I never planned on falling in love. Or getting married. I knew my family was fucked; I didn’t need to bring someone else into it. My family pestered me about it a lot, about needing to start a family, to _‘continue the La Domas line’_.”

Grace can barely see his face in the darkness, the green glow of the machines the only light to see him by. He’s not looking at her at all while he talks, and the story feels like a single line of thread that she’s pulled by accident, unraveling everything that’s been wound up inside of him. His words are careful.

“Then I met Charity. Sexy as hell and the most emotionally detached person I’d ever met. A perfect match. She was ruthless, someone who had clawed her way into our circles, and I knew my parents would hate her so. That was a plus. I started bringing her to family events. We had a sort of unspoken agreement, I guess, where we kept each other at arm’s length, and I bought her a shit ton of expensive jewelry and it just. It worked.”

Daniel pauses, his eyes flickering to Grace’s face for only the briefest second before he continues.

“After two years I offered to marry her. I told her everything. The game. What would happen if she drew hide and seek. She didn’t even blink. Jesus, who hears ‘ _My family might try to murder you on our wedding night’_ and says ‘ _I’ve been through worse’_? Charity.”

There’s a begrudging respect in his voice, but not love. Grace wonders how things would be different, what she would have said if Alex had told her the truth. Would she have run? Would she have shrugged? Would she have even believed him?

“Anyway. She drew chess.”

Grace watches Daniel absently flex his hand and she knows he wishes he had a drink in it.

“You don’t have to stay here, you know,” Grace says.

Daniel looks at her, his face utterly unreadable. He doesn’t respond. She can only imagine that he’d rather be anywhere but here, at the bedside of his brother’s new battered and torn wife. She tries to see Alex in him and is surprised when she can’t find him anywhere in Daniel’s face. Not in his knitted brow, not in the way he pushes his hand through his hair on the back of his neck.

Grace closes her eyes, sudden tiredness washing over her.

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

\---

Hours later, Grace wakes again. Daniel is asleep in the chair next to the bed, his head tilted back, jaw slightly slack. She doesn’t know what woke her until she sees a shadow pass the window, blocking out the moonlight for a brief second. She turns her head slightly and suddenly a large hand is covering her mouth.

She tries to scream, but another hand chokes off her windpipe, cutting her off. The stranger’s entire weight is leaning on her, pushing her into the bed. She can’t move. She can’t scream. Daniel is just feet away from her. Her large eyes blink up, trying to make out a face in her panic, in the darkness.

She can’t breathe.

As she starts to see stars in her vision the hands press harder on her throat, on her windpipe, and on her face. Then he slips, his finger positioned directly between her teeth and Grace bites. As hard as she can.

The man yelps, involuntarily, stumbling back. The metal rod holding her IV bag clatters loudly to the ground and Daniel is up on his feet in a moment.

Grace is sucking in quick, desperate breaths, the air not returning to her lungs quick enough. They feel raspy as they rush in, and before the stranger can stumble to his feet, Daniel has him in a headlock.

“What the _fuck_ , Fitch?”

Fitch? Emilie’s bumbling husband? Grace uses her good hand to pull her hospital gown away from her neck, trying to gain a sense of space again.

“You are doing the absolute shittiest job of trying to kill me, you know that?” Grace croaks.

“Who let you in?” Daniel growls. Fitch’s face is turning purple, and Grace has no sympathy. He blubbers for a moment until Daniel releases his grip enough to let him talk.

“I handed the security guard a bunch of cash. He basically handed me his gun.”

Fucking rich people.

Daniel yanks Fitch to his feet, spinning him around to face him directly, grabbing him by his shirt collar.

“Anything else I should know?”

Fitch tries to glance over Daniel’s shoulder to look at Grace, but Daniel shakes him.

“Don’t look at her. Look at me. What else do I need to know, huh, Fitch? I’ve played poker with you. Your lying is almost as shit as your murdering.”

Fitch grimaces.

“Look, I just decided I would try to beat everyone else here. Make up for my lousy job yesterday.”

“Everyone. Else?”

Daniel shoves Fitch against the wall, knocking him to the ground. Grace is already one step ahead of him, pulling the IVs out of her hand.

“I don’t have any clothes—” she starts to say, and Daniel throws his leather jacket at her. Grace pulls it on over her flimsy hospital gown, wincing as she pulls it over the stab wound on her shoulder. Daniel moves to let Grace go first, keeping an eye on Fitch as she pulls the door open. As soon as she’s out into the fluorescent lit hallway, someone grabs her arm. Grace growls in pain, turning to face her new assailant.

“Grace wait. Please. Please let me talk to you.”

She’s staring up into the pleading face of her husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed the title (and the upcoming chapter titles) because this work is being funded almost exclusively by Billie Eilish's music. And your comments. WOW. Blown away. Okay thank u bye


	3. once the waters start to rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _And heaven’s out of sight / she’ll want the devil on her team (my lucifer is lonely)_

“Let go of my arm.”

As Daniel shuts the door to the empty hospital room behind him, he hears Grace’s growl and freezes. He watches Alex hesitate, and then suddenly drop her arm as if it’s on fire. Grace scurries away from him, putting as much space between them as she can afford. The look on her face reminds Daniel of when he found her in the study. A deer caught at the end of the barrel of a gun, chest fluttering with panicked breaths.

“Grace,” Alex says. Begs.

“I don’t know what you want me to say to you,” Grace says. The hallway is completely empty, the fluorescent lights flickering, giving Alex’s skin a sickly green glow. Granted, that could also be the poison he ingested just a few hours before. Alex’s eyes land on Daniel. It’s hard not to see the innocent brother underneath it, the one he protected from his family’s bullshit his entire life.

What a cruel irony. The only thing Daniel ever tried to protect, to get right, and he managed to fuck that up too.

“Just because you made a different choice tonight,” Alex says, “Doesn’t change who you’ve been your whole life.”

“Maybe,” Daniel shrugs, though the comment stings. “But I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’m always going to be a shitty asshole. That doesn’t mean you have to drag Grace into it with you.”

“I’m offering you a choice,” Alex says to Grace. “You can come back. We can start over. We can make this work.”

Grace laughs, a hollow angry sound. Out of the corner of his eye Daniel can see that she’s gripping an empty gurney for support.

“Your whole family tried to murder me, You _stabbed me_ , Alex. How do we start over from that, exactly?”

Alex frowns.

“The rest of the family is on their way,” Alex says. “They haven’t decided what to do yet. They may not be so forgiving.”

“Then let us leave,” Grace says, face steely.

Us?

Daniel finally lets himself look at her. Her eyes have landed on him now, and panic seizes his chest. He hadn’t thought this far ahead. He hadn’t really thought this through period. He needed to get her out and then… what?

“You can’t run forever,” Alex says.

“Y’know,” Daniel says, moving towards Grace. She’s clinging to his jacket wrapped tightly around her hospital gown. “It’s kind of funny that you and Grace were planning to leave. It looks to me like this has only brought you and the family closer. You’ve really stepped into the whole golden boy role, you know.”

On the last word, Daniel pulls the empty gurney out from under Grace’s grip and shoves it, sending it flying down the hallway, directly into Alex, catching her as she stumbled forward. It’s not particularly heavy but the shock factor works and Alex stumbles back, distracted, and Grace pulls Daniel down the hallway in the other direction. Daniel can see that she’s breaking down, her body failing her, drugs still in her system. She can’t even run in a straight line.

As they round a corner Daniel spots an empty wheelchair, the kind used to transport patients.

“Here,” he says, grabbing it. Grace doesn’t complain, jumping on, and they take off toward the elevator. Daniel hits the button over and over as if that will call it sooner and Alex appears around the corner. He’s got his phone to his ear.

“They’re getting on the east side elevator,” he hears Alex say as the doors finally open. He manages to shut them before Alex can reach them, but instead of hitting the button for the ground floor he hits the button to go up.

“What—”

“There’s a service elevator on the next floor.”

“How do you _know_ that?”

“Uh. Long story.”

It wasn’t exactly a _long_ story. Just an embarrassing one, involving alcohol poisoning and some very narrow scrapes with local law enforcement.

As they roll down the next hallway toward the service elevator Daniel hears Grace swear. He doesn’t want to slow down, but he halts next to her. Instinctively he moves his hand toward her back but he stops himself, suddenly feeling too intimate.

“What?” he asks, and then he sees it. She’s bleeding through her bandages on her hand, peeking out from his jacket sleeve.

“My stitches split. Fuck. I’m so sorry, I’m getting blood all over your jacket.”

The blood on his jacket doesn’t phase him. He glances around. It’s empty in the hallway, thank God, and there has to be extra bandages somewhere. He pulls open six cupboards, knocking supplies over until he finds a giant roll. He tosses three of them into Grace’s lap. And a few more medical looking things just for good measure.

“I miss my morphine,” she says mournfully as they finally reach the service elevator, rewrapping her hand. It’s large, the wheels on the chair thrumming over the textured metal floor. Once inside the sound becomes hollow, echoing through the metal chamber. The doors slide shut and the silence feels heavy as they both breathe hard from the exertion.

“Thank you,” she says.

“You can thank me when you’re not dead,” he replies gruffly, hitting the button for the underground parking garage, averting his eyes from her face. She’s too open, every emotion always showing. So different from his family. It’s disarming. It’s yanking vulnerability out of him by the throat.

“You don’t have to keep doing this, you know. Obviously, I’m a little, well, incapacitated,” she says with a sardonic smile, waving her injured hand. “But seriously once we get the hell away from them, I can take care of myself.”

She’s saying it casually, like they’re friends leaving a bar and he’s just offered to walk her home.

“Jesus, Grace,” Daniel says as the elevator doors open. “You don’t have to.”

“What?” she asks, as if she’s misheard him. He finally braves a glance at her face. It’s just a glance before he looks around the garage but it’s hard not to take all of her in at once. The collar of his leather jacket resting against the skin of her neck, her naturally curly hair curling around her face, the way she’s staring at him like she’s trying to understand him and the way he wants to let her.

“You don’t have to always take care of yourself. I just mean that I uh. I’ve got your back.”

He sees her eyes water, though her expression doesn’t change.

“Well,” she shrugs, blinking, swiping at her nose discreetly with her good hand. “I guess we’re in this together then.”

She turns, looking down the aisles of cars. Most likely belonging to hospital employees. Her eyes land on one specifically—the license plate cover reading _Valley Creek Medical Center_ Board—and when she turns back to look at him she has a conspiratorial smile on her face.

“Want me to show you how to hotwire a hospital board member’s car?”

* * *

Grace is dozing in the reclined passenger seat as they cross the state line. She’s using his soft leather jacket as a pillow. Daniel glances over at her, checking her shittily reapplied bandages out of the corner of her eye. She’ll need to get a few of the stitches redone. She’s breathing heavily, and her nose wrinkles slightly in her sleep.

Daniel checks the car’s GPS, where he’s randomly selected a highly rated hospital in the neighboring state. He takes a deep breath in. It doesn’t feel quite enough like leaving for him to feel comfortable. There’s an invisible tether, he can feel it’s tug. Back to his family, back to Charity, back to where he’s supposed to be. The level of responsibility he’s always felt has, partially, come from the curse. But the curse isn’t real, so now what? So now he’s hauling his brother’s new bride across state lines in a stolen car to check her into a hospital? How was any of this ever supposed to _fit_?

The smooth female voice on the GPS quietly tells him to take the next exit.

* * *

When Grace wakes up in the safety of the Ronald A. Peterson Memorial Hospital, Daniel is finishing up his sixth Sudoku table from the book he bought in the hospital shop. Her eyes flutter open in a panic and her heart rate monitor jumps for a moment until she realizes where she is and how she got there.

“Jesus, how long have I been out?” she asks.

“A week,” he deadpans, and her eyes widen in alarm.

“Nah, I’m just fucking with you,” he says. “It’s only been a few hours.”

“Fuck you,” she says, but she smiles. She glances at her bedside table.

“No flowers?” she says. “What an inconsiderate ass.”

“Sorry, I’ll remember to grab some next time I’m dumping a stolen car.”

A knock on the heavy wooden door reveals a short nurse holding a tray of food. She pushes the door open with her hip as she comes in.

“How are you feeling, Lisa?” the nurse asks.

“Like I just got hit by a car,” Grace says. She spots the food on the tray and narrows her eyes. “How much are you gonna charge me for that cup of jello?”

The nurse glances at Daniel in alarm. He shakes his head.

“She’ll eat it.”

“I think the fuck not, not if it costs me 13 dollars. I know this game.”

“She’ll eat it.”

The nurse nervously sets the tray on the fold out table in front of Grace and turns to face Daniel.

“Your wife should probably be good for discharge tomorrow, but I have some papers I need you to sign. I’ll be back with them in a moment.”

Grace raises an eyebrow at him. He shrugs unapologetically.

“I wasn’t kidding about the jello,” she says. “I’m not paying for that.”

“You don’t have to pay for anything. I’ve got it.”

“Okay. I’ll allow it. It’s the least you can do after your family tried to murder me.”

Grace is smiling but Daniel sobers up. Because she’s right, and there’s so much more to fix than her stitches.

“We need a plan,” Grace says, spooning the jello out of the small cup.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” Daniel replies. “We need to go somewhere to lay low for a bit. So you can recover, get your health and strength back.”

Grace is spooning the jello into her mouth enthusiastically when she suddenly freezes, an idea clearly crossing her face. Daniel leans forward in his chair.

“What?” he asks.

“I think I know where Alex would never think to look for us. But it’s a terrible, terrible idea.”

“What?” Daniel asks, more incredulous.

“Alex and I have already paid for our honeymoon. The idea was to get away--really away--for like a month after the wedding. It was my idea, he seemed so stressed about the family so I wanted something to look forward to."

Daniel doesn't respond, processing what she's saying.

"So... how do you feel about the Caribbean?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this took 85 years but please believe me when I say this was 1000% motivated by all of your kind words WOW ??! THANK YOU!!


	4. tore my shirt to stop you bleedin’

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _but nothin’ ever stops you leavin’_

The penthouse is dark, the only light coming from the city below, visible only through the sheer curtains. Daniel doesn’t turn the lights on but finds his way to the liquor cabinet with ease. It’s ludicrously pavlovian the way the ‘click’ of the cabinet door already makes him feel better. Fuck, maybe he _should_ get some help.

He slides the whiskey bottle into the pocket of his jeans and turns.

“Jesus Christ!” he swears.

He can see the silhouette of Charity in the doorway leading to the bedroom. The light behind her is orange, obscuring her features, shining through her sheer nightdress.

“Were you just lurking in the shadows for me to notice you? How long have you been standing there?”

“Are you two fucking?” Charity asks.

She doesn’t sound angry. Judgmental, maybe. There’s a decent amount of arrogance in how she says it, like if it’s _true_ then he’s an idiot.

“No.” Daniel replies. Truthfully. But the beat that passes before he says it is just a moment too long and Charity’s eyes narrow. She steps forward, a wayward skylight illuminating her face enough that he can see her expression. How her lips thin the way they always do when she knows he’s bullshitting her.

“You know how badly that would hurt Alex.”

It feels like a slap. He physically winces too, and God, he hasn’t even done anything wrong.

Well, except show up at his penthouse in the middle of the night to get his passport to flee the country with his brother’s bride.

His hand finds the whiskey bottle in his pocket, feeling the cool glass on his fingertips. Knowing that a dull, blurry bliss is just a few swigs away.

“I think we’re all a little bit past that now,” Daniel says, taking a few long strides across the space between them, pushing past Charity to walk towards their bedroom. He catches a faint whiff of her perfume—she’s never worn perfume for him. So it doesn’t surprise him that there’s a figure in their bed when he throws the light on. She’s a redhead with smudged lipstick, pulling the sheets up in shock as Daniel ignores her, walking over to their closet.

“Who the fuck is that?” he can hear the girl asking Charity as he punches in the numbers on their safe. He grabs his passport and a wad of cash. After he finishes stuffing some warm weather clothes in a bag and walks back out, the girl is gone. He can hear the shower in their master bathroom turn on.

“Did you tell her you were married?” he asks, more out of curiosity than anything. He always told the women he slept with that he was married. It never seemed to make a difference. Actually worked in his favor, usually. Made them feel more special, somehow.

Charity frowns, following him back out into the dark hallway. She doesn’t respond to his question, and instead asks, “Why are you helping her?”

Daniel stops with his hand on the door handle. Where would he even begin to answer a question he has no fucking clue how to answer himself?

“What, no snarky response? No quip? You’re losing your edge, Daniel.”

But she’s not stopping him. She’s letting him go without an explanation. For that, he glances behind him and sees that she’s gone. Daniel pulls the door open, and before he steps out, he pulls the bottle of whiskey out of his pocket and takes a long, hard swig.

It’s going to be a long flight.

* * *

Not that Grace had spent a _lot_ of time imagining her honeymoon but spending it with her alcoholic brother-in-law instead of her husband was a little bit of a surprise. To say the least.

And there are worse places to convalesce from your new in-laws trying to kill you than the Caribbean, especially when you have a private villa with its own pool so you can lay out in your bikini as much as you want without anyone asking what the horrendous looking scars covering your body are from.

The lack of sex kind of sucks, though.

Daniel, at the very least, is in his own version of paradise. Basically unlimited drinks from the bar _and_ delivered to their room. She’d never pegged him as a fruity drink person but as he’s mentioned at least six times, “Alcohol is alcohol.” And the fruity drinks seem to get him drunk faster.

It’s been three weeks of this—having extended the trip by one week already—and she’s healing better than expected. She’s on the super-rich people drugs, it seems, and as it turns out… this particular vacation destination is one that celebrities recovering from plastic surgery take, so she’s visited the on-island doctor a few times. Other than possibly offering her meth (?) he’s helped her recovery loads. She can finally swim now and has been doing laps in the pool to build up her strength.

Other than occasionally helping her redress her bandages, Daniel has mostly left her alone. They barely speak to one another, going about their business at a safe distance. She gets the honeymoon suite—and the king-sized bed—all to herself. Daniel has been sleeping on the couch in the living room of their private villa.

Except for, well, when she wakes up screaming in the middle of the night.

The first time it happens she doesn’t realize what’s happening. That her screams had been out loud. She realizes what it must have sounded like when she sees the stricken look on Daniel’s, hovering tentatively in the doorway in his boxers.

“I—you—I heard you screaming.”

He looks miserably, somberly sober.

Grace’s body is trembling. When she closes her eyes, her dream is flashing in front of her in bits and pieces. Alex’s face as he brings the knife down. Gunshots fired at her. Inexplicably, her teeth falling out. One by one, clattering onto the ground, nothing she can do to stop it.

“I’m fine,” Grace says, her voice coming out hoarse and not at all convincing. Daniel lingers in the doorway for a moment longer, his hand pressed against the frame.

“I’m _fine_ ,” she says, more firm. He’s gone, quickly, and she’s both relieved and annoyed for reasons she can’t quite put into words. What does she expect from him, anyway? He’s swooped in and saved her and now he’s ignoring her, and she wants what, wants more from him? She doesn’t even _know_ him.

The next time it happens, she wakes herself up. She sits up so quickly she hurts her arm and cusses. She’s hyperventilating, trying to find something in the room to lock her gaze on to calm her the fuck down. Looking at the door does the trick. She spots his shadow, two feet lingering in front of her closed door. As her breathing slows, she waits for him to knock. To come inside.

He doesn’t.

It happens a few more times, the nights that she’s actually able to fall asleep. She’s nearly always being chased. Sometimes she’s running and she’s not going anywhere. Sometimes she’s watching Daniel die instead, his arms spread out, protecting her from a gunshot. Usually it’s Charity holding the gun, but sometimes it’s Emilie. Fitch. Becky. She clutches her good hand to Daniel’s neck to try to stop the bleeding, but she never can.

She’s exhausted during the day, staying in bed, watching reruns of Real Housewives with the window open, the warm salty breeze making her drowsy. The few times she spots herself in the bathroom mirror she can see that there are dark circles under her eyes.

She never asks for food, but each day room service shows up, and Daniel has always ordered enough for both of them. Sometimes she eats it. Sometimes she doesn’t. She lies and says she has a shrimp allergy. She just really fucking hates shrimp. But he never orders it again. Daniel’s drunk, most of the time, and she’s on probably twice the legal limit of painkillers, but he never orders shrimp again.

Two weeks into their stay she’s laying on a chair on their private beach, reading a book, when he comes and sits next to her. He’s wearing his swim trunks and has a towel draped around his bare shoulders.

She peers at him over her book. He’s staring at the ocean. She turns a page without really reading it, waiting for him to say something.

Grace is still surprised when he does.

“I have nightmares too,” he says.

The sun is setting behind them, and Grace lowers her book, unsure of what to say. If she should prompt him further. He’s not looking at her, just staring out at the ocean.

“Most of the time they’re of you dying. Sometimes I die. The most fucked up ones are basically just the highlights from the top ten goat sacrifices of my childhood. Only sometimes—”

His voice cracks, slightly, and he’s still not looking at her. “Sometimes you’re the goat.”

Grace doesn’t speak for a moment. The sky deepens into pinks and reds and they both watch the water for a minute.

“Look,” Grace says, trying to choose her words carefully. She doesn’t want him to read into this offer, but they’re both clearly exhausted, the bags under Daniel’s eyes matching hers. “If it. If you think it. Would. Might help—you can. You can come sleep in my room.”

For the first time since the start of the conversation, Daniel looks over at her. Startled.

“I’m not trying to seduce you or something, Jesus—” Grace says, rubbing her eyes. Before the wedding, Daniel used to hit on her _constantly_. Now he barely speaks to her.

“No—” Daniel says. “Fuck—I know—”

“Just. It’s a king-sized bed. It’s probably more comfortable than the couch and—” Grace sucks in a breath. “I don’t know. It might help me sleep, too.”

Already feeling more uncomfortable than she wants to ever feel around Daniel, she snaps her book shut. Standing up, grabbing the towel off of the chair, she walks back to the villa, leaving Daniel sitting in the sand behind her staring at the darkening sky.

That night though, when she wakes up—little Georgie’s head had turned into a goat’s head and he rammed straight through her stomach, breaking all of her ribs—Daniel appears in the doorway for the first time since that night. Shirtless, in his boxers.

“I’m starting to think this is the fucked-up way Aunt Helene has come up with to punish us for crushing her with a garage,” she deadpans, breaking the silence.

Daniel laughs and although the sound seems like it was pulled from him involuntarily, he tentatively makes his way to the side of the bed Grace isn’t on. He climbs under the sheets—light sheets, since it’s so warm—and lays his head on the pillow, staring up at the ceiling. They both lay there in silence for a minute.

“She always freaked me the fuck out,” he finally admits aloud.

“Aunt Helene?”

“Oh yeah. She was way too into the sacrifices. She’d put blood on her face and my dad—my dad was always like, ‘Helene you don’t need to do that, it’s not actually part of the ritual’.”

Despite herself, Grace snorts. Turning her head, she can barely see Daniel’s outline in the dark. He’s smiling, a hesitant and fragile thing.

“I’ll keep my hands to myself,” he says.

“I’m known to be a cover hog,” Grace replies.

And that’s how the unspoken agreement begins. That’s how from that night on they share the bed. The king gives them plenty of space from each other but occasionally, in that half-awake, half-asleep place she’ll reach for him and his hand is there, already reaching for her too. She’ll squeeze his hand until his breathing returns to normal, or until her vision stops spinning. Sometimes she’ll just hold onto his arm, falling back asleep that way. On more than one occasion she’s woken up with his hand on her waist, nearly spooning. She pretends to be asleep, hardly breathing, until his hand moves away abruptly, like he’s caught himself in some muscle memory that’s inappropriate to the situation.

It is inappropriate to the situation, she reminds herself. She’s on her honeymoon with her alcoholic brother-in-law. But something about it starts to feel normal. Safe again. The soft breathing next to her in bed feeling strangely comforting. She doesn’t mean to settle, but she does. And with her energy returning, her anger returns with it. Without meaning to, she’s starting to form a plan.

* * *

Week four begins and their routine has settled. Daniel can see Grace healing better and faster than he ever she thought she would. The scars on her back and shoulders—her hand, especially—they’re obvious. But he can see color returning to her every day. She’s doing more laps in the pool, even swimming out in the ocean.

He shouldn’t be letting his guard down as much as he is, getting as comfortable as he is. They’re starting to make breakfast in the villa instead of ordering it in. They’re brushing their teeth at the same time at night in the double sinks in the bathroom. He’s woken up spooning her more than once and has had to roll away to avoid making his morning wood her morning wake up call.

But he’s drinking less, which is weird. And he’s relaxing, which is even weirder.

He brings Grace her post-swim snacks one afternoon, carrying the fruits and cheeses out on a tray. He can’t believe they haven’t maxed his card yet, or that his family hasn’t caught onto where they are.

A golden shimmer of hair stands out against the blue water of the pool as she swims underneath it, surfacing at the end closest to him. She hasn’t worn a single drop of makeup the entire time they’ve been here and she’s still striking. _And your brother’s wife_ , he reminds himself, trying (and failing) not to notice how the white bikini looks slick against her tanned skin.

Grace kicks herself up to the pools edge, crossing her arms, resting her chin on them.

“Mmm snacks,” she smiles.

“Fancy cheeses, as requested,” he says. Grace hoists herself out of the pool and he glances away, tossing her a towel. She wraps it around her shoulders, moving to sit by him, plucking a cherry off of the tray.

“I’ve been thinking,” she says with the cherry fully in her mouth. Wiping the red juices haphazardly away with the back of her hand, she continues. “You said it all deserved to burn to the ground. Did you mean it?”

Daniel thinks for a moment, popping a grape into his mouth. He’s wearing sunglasses, and he drops them down the bridge of his nose to look at her without them. It was one of their nighttime conversations. Stuff they didn’t normally talk about during the day.

“Yeah, I did,” he says, pushing his sunglasses back onto the bridge of his nose, effectively hiding most of his expression. Or so he hoped.

“I think we should go back,” Grace says, reaching for some cheese off of the tray.

“Back?” he asks, panic flooding up through his throat.

“Back to the house. To the family. If we want to burn everything down, we have to do it from the inside out, don’t we?”

Daniel pulls his sunglasses fully off. “Grace, do you realize what you’re saying?”

“Yeah,” she says. “I do. I don’t think they’ll try to kill me again. Well, maybe not so obviously.”

“Wherever you’re going with this, it sounds like a really fucking bad idea.”

“What’s the alternative?” she asks, lifting herself up onto the side of the pool. He tosses her a towel, politely looking away. “Live here forever?”

Obviously not, he knows he should reply. It’s not realistic. It’s not sustainable. They’re going to run out of money. He can think of a million reasons why what she’s saying makes the most sense—more sense than running forever—but that doesn’t stop him from wishing that this easy routine could be permanent.

“You’re probably right,” he says carefully. “And you sound like you have a plan.”

Grace shrugs. “It all depends. Depends on if Alex will take me back, if the family will still let us both back in.”

“He’ll take you back,” Daniel says with a surety.

“You think so?”

He wants to say: he’d be a fucking idiot if he didn’t take you back. He was a fucking idiot for doing what he did and losing you in the first place.

What he says is: “Yeah. I think so.”

And then, without meaning to, the question tumbles out of his mouth.

“Do you still love him?”

Grace doesn’t seem surprised by the question at all. But she doesn’t answer right away. The silence seems to last an eternity, and just when he’s wishing he could take it back, take back the stupid, stupid question—

“I can make it work,” she says. “As long as I need to. To burn it all down from the inside.”

She’s looking at him and he’s staring at the pool and he wonders how it’s possible for two insufferably blue eyes to burn him the way that hers do and then—then he caves. He turns to look at her.

“It’ll be dangerous,” he says.

“I know,” she says, taking a deep breath. Her white blonde hair is curling against her face in the humidity. Her nose is sunburned slightly pink. She fits in better here with the sun and the beach and the sand than she ever did against the mahogany halls of his family’s house. She should leave. She should run as far away from this as she can.

But there’s a small, selfish part of him that doesn’t want that either.

“So,” Daniel says, slowly. “Tell me what you need.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> truly the only reason I revisited this was because of all of the amazing comments I've received--I am so blown away that there are enough fans of this movie (and of this pairing) to have an audience for this weird little fic of mine?? anyway so here's ur update. we all need this with the pandemic rn. (come find me on tumblr @reystars and chat!)


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